The world around them was unnaturally still—too still.
No wind.No sound.No time.
Kael opened his eyes to find himself suspended in a velvet void, a cosmic canvas stretched infinitely in all directions. Stars blinked in and out like dying memories, their light dimming… fading… as if even they had forgotten how to shine.
"Aeris?" he called out, his voice echoing like a memory forgotten by the universe.
No answer.
His hand reached through the emptiness, the last embers of their shared power flickering weakly in his palm. His breath fogged in the cold nothingness, a haunting reminder that he was still alive—barely.
But she was gone.
He spun slowly, desperate, his thoughts clawing for reason. They had shattered the storm, defied the Architect's remnant—hadn't they?
Suddenly, a faint heartbeat pulsed beneath his feet. He looked down.
Below him, fragments of memories—his memories—floated like shards of glass. A younger Kael crying in the rain. Aeris laughing under starlight. Blood on his hands. Her scream in the distance. His betrayal. Her forgiveness.
Then, a voice, soft yet ancient, drifted through the void.
"To love is to lose… again and again… until time forgets your name."
He turned and saw her.
Aeris—floating within a cocoon of fractured light, her body still, her eyes closed, her hair flowing like ink in water. She looked untouched by time… or perhaps too touched by it.
Kael raced to her, each step sinking him deeper into a flood of forgotten futures and lost tomorrows. For every inch he pushed forward, a version of himself pulled him back—Kael the coward, Kael the villain, Kael who never fought.
But he kept going.
He reached her.
Touching her hand, time surged again. The void cracked. Stars ignited. And her eyes snapped open.
"Kael…" she whispered. "They're not gone… The Rift still breathes."
His heart stuttered.
The Rift.
The source of all their suffering… and the key to saving what remained.
But before he could respond, the stars above exploded with violet light. A symbol burned into the sky—an eye with no iris. Watching.
A voice thundered through existence, shaking the very foundation of time.
"You were never meant to survive this long, Kael. Now, the real game begins."
Kael and Aeris looked up—and for the first time since they had defied fate, fear returned to their eyes.
Because they weren't alone anymore.
Something older than time had awoken.